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AMD's A-OK

AMD's earnings report appears free from the bloopers that sent Intel down the gauntlet.

AMD(NYSE:AMD) released its second-quarter earnings last evening after market close and, wow, was it boring. But given the rude reception that Intel(NASDAQ:INTC) received following its latest numbers, I can imagine the folks at AMD figured boring was good, or at least safe.

It's not that there wasn't great progress. Sales were $1.26 billion. A 96% revenue increase and $0.09 per-share profit -- over last year's $0.40 loss -- are nothing to sneeze at. But (yawn, excuse me) they're not too exciting either, coming in just about exactly where analysts thought they would.

Of course, hitting your mark doesn't get you a free pass. It wasn't Intel's long-expected nearly 100% increase in earnings per share that earned it a trip down the gauntlet; it was the 15% uptick in inventories and a warning on slimming profit margins. AMD passed the inventory test -- at least compared to Intel -- with a smaller-than-5% increase. And it predicted moderate increases in sales for the upcoming months, so it shouldn't be hit by the same kind of panic selling.

One of the more interesting developments for AMD is the continued growth of its flash memory business. This product -- not to be confused with the flash RAM produced by Lexar Media(NASDAQ:LEXR) and SanDisk(NASDAQ:SNDK) -- stores code and operating system data for mobile devices like phones. Revenues from the mem biz soared 220% to $673 million. That's 15% more than sold by Intel, the other major player in the field, and it comes to more than half of AMD's total revenues.

While AMD's recent desktop processors, including its popular 64-bit chips, are raking in increasing sales, the rapid adaptation of sophisticated cell phones and other handheld computers may provide the real thrust to AMD's growth down the road. And that might make future earnings announcements a lot more exciting.